Dublin City Board of Education to scrap gifted academy for IB magnet school, move alternative school

The Dublin City Board of Education voted at a testy called meeting Tuesday to scrap the controversial and costly Irish Gifted Academy and replace it with a prep magnet school to feed the high school international baccalaureate program.

However, the IB magnet school will move into the Moore Street building, currently the district’s alternative school. Those alternative students now will move into IGA classrooms, but the old high school gym will be closed for class activities to save money.

“We’re following the state’s recommendations,” board Chairwoman Amanda Smith said Wednesday. 

“It’s a financially responsible decision.”

The magnet school would retain the approximately $1 million in state funding the IGA receives annually for students, and, as a school rather than program, it would also generate more state revenue to pay for positions, including a principal, which do not qualify for state money at IGA.

The board also voted to implement a blended learning model for alternative students that calls for more face-to-face teaching time and less virtual learning. 

The plans were approved, both by 4-3 votes and along racial lines. The three dissenting board members, Peggy Johnson, JoAnna Glover and Kenny Walters said they were not informed about the plans prior to the meeting.

“As a board member, I know as much tonight as everybody else out there,” Johnson said to the packed crowd attending the called board meeting.

The agenda called for the board to discuss state recommendations on Moore Street School and then IGA, but Johnson insisted the board wait until both presentations before a vote on either was held.

Smith said the ideas were among several discussed among board members, district officials and state Department of Education representatives over past months as they sought ways to climb out of a projected $13.4 million deficit.

The Irish Gifted Academy has been a lightning rod for criticism during the district’s financial crisis, especially among parents and others who believe the academy gets special treatment and takes away resources from other schools. Some of those concerns were somewhat confirmed in a report from Ben Lanier, who took on the role of district director of accountability in January.

“It’s very confusing to try to sort through and figure out what’s what with IGA,” Lanier said.

Test scores from IGA students are reported as from their assigned “base school,” which has “muddied the water” on gauging the actual performance at those schools.

“We don’t have the luxury of not being transparent with student outcomes,” he said.

The IGA has 251 students, but only 49 of them have beed identified as gifted. “The gifted academy label does not fit the student population it serves,” Lanier said. “That’s not to say that those students are not talented or high-achieving, but if a building is named a gifted academy, you would expect that the majority of the student population be gifted, and it takes away our legitimacy to defend an institution. This is not a branding problem. This is a core structural misalignment, and it’s Ben Lanier’s opinion is that it was not set up to succeed.”

The IB magnet school would spell out clear criteria for admissions to avoid any appearances of favoritism. It would immediately qualify for $180,000 in state funding. Part of it would pay for a principal and literacy coach, while $40,000 would be earmarked for security and $20,000 for mental health services. 

La’Ronda Fleming, the district’s federal programs director, pitched the plan for Moore Street to switch to a blended learning instructional model that called for more face-to-face teaching time despite the staff being hit hard by job cuts last fall. In the first semester, enrollment was 74 students, with seven teachers and two administrators. This semester, enrollment is at 67 students, but with just three teachers and one administrator.

Under the model, every teacher will be certified in the subjects they teach, Fleming said.

The move to the former IGA classrooms would put the students on the same campus as the high school, but in a different building, while allowing for support and newer facilities.

“They would be in a more secure building,” said board member John Bell, drawing groans some in the crowd.

Interim Superintendent Marcee Pool said the plans were among many recommendations made by the state, some of which would not work for Dublin. “We had to wrap our heads around it and determine if it’s feasible for our system,” she said, explaining the delay in presenting the plans to board members, Both  Lanier and Fleming said their presentations were not finished until shortly before the board meeting.

Walters, a longtime board member, objected to the board “getting these things at the last minute.”

“This board is getting back into some of its old habits. Don’t worry about the minority as long as the majority is going,” Walters said.

Board member James Lanier responded in his comments, saying, “Whether it’s 4-3 or 7-0, as long as we have the best interest of the kids at heart, it doesn’t matter. And I don’t care if you’re black or white.”

The meeting was tense from the start. Carolyn McCune, a candidate for Laurens County commissioner and a frequent attendee of the board’s meetings, had an exchange with Smith after the chairwoman objected to McCune speaking loudly out of turn. Smith finally told McCune she would have two uniformed officers who were at the meeting escort her from the room if she continued.

“We’re not having that tonight,” Smith said.

The school board has managed to substantially reduce spending, mostly through job cuts, to the point that it could end the current fiscal year without the huge deficit. However, the district’s facing another hurdle with its accreditation. A recent review dropped the school system’s accreditation to the lowest level prior to losing accreditation altogether. According to state law, the downgrade to “accredited with rating” requires that the Georgia Board of Education hold a formal hearing on whether to recommend that the governor suspend the local board’s members and replace them.